VIKTOR'SMODULAR_SYNTHDIARY

Ben Vida is a New York composer and sound artist who came up through Chicago’s experimental scene with the group Town & Country. Around 2010 he moved from acoustic instruments and bands into synthesis and systems-based composition. The 2014 Quietus interview Aestheticising The Everyday is a good way in.

This line stuck with me:

Rather, the catharsis, disorientation, and straightforward playfulness of his music evokes a childhood scene—picking up the objects immediately at hand and testing them, banging them together, and finding inventive ways to bring joy out of them.

That’s close to how I want to work.

I made a few sine-wave sketches while chewing on this — the players at the end of this post run in three groups: just intonation vs. equal temperament (unison, fifth, third, seventh, then a full just chord), beating at increasing rates (1–40 Hz, plus two sweeps), and difference tones from pairs of higher sines.

What I take from his approach, from a modular angle:

• He treats a patch as a system that makes some of its own decisions, instead of an instrument he “plays.” You set up relationships between control signals and let it run.
• The setup was a hybrid of Max/MSP and Eurorack. Digital material gets analyzed and turned into CV, which drives triggers, gates, envelope rates and pitches on the analog side.
• Lots of sine waves, just intonation, beating and difference tones. The room and the ear become part of the synthesis.
• Space is compositional, not a mixing afterthought.
• Rhythm comes from phasing and clouds of small events more than from a clock and sequencer.

His 2011 piece hy.morf.eld is a concrete example: material generated in Max/MSP, vocoder analysis turned into CV, that CV driving pitch, envelopes, gates and triggers across the Eurorack, then several takes edited into the finished piece. His notes for MACBA’s Composing with Process document it.

Records I’d start with: Esstends–Esstends–Esstends (PAN, 2012), then Slipping Control (Shelter Press, 2014) and Damaged Particulates (Shelter Press, 2016). Reducing the Tempo to Zero is the slower, durational side. His Bandcamp has these and later work.

What I keep coming back to is the topology, not the module list — I’d distrust any attempt to reverse-engineer the records into a shopping list of modules anyway. The chain is: Max/MSP analysis and generation → CV → Eurorack → the room → the ear. The questions under it:

• What happens when you translate one representation — speech, a waveform, analysis data — into another?
• How much of the composing can you hand to the patch?
• Can CV organize form, not just animate timbre?
• Can two close oscillators make the room and your ear produce something that isn’t literally in the signal?

If I wanted to get near this on my own rig: a handful of very pure oscillators with precise tuning, function generators, VCAs, a computer-to-CV interface, and a lot of panning. Generate slow just-intonation relationships and correlated envelopes in Max, SuperCollider or Pure Data, let analyzed audio move several parameters at once, record a few autonomous runs, and edit afterward. That gets closer than any single module.

Dennis DeSantis’s Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers isn’t about modular synths, but several chapters fit the way I patch.

I’d start with “Goal-less Exploration” (p. 62). Pick one module or routing idea and follow it without trying to make a track. Record while you work. A patch is temporary, and its best moment may happen before you know what it is.

Next is “Arbitrary Constraints” (p. 33). Limit the patch to one voice, a handful of modules, or a fixed number of cables. A smaller system is easier to learn and often produces more focused results.

“Scraps and Sketches” (p. 74) is a reminder to save incomplete ideas. A short recording or rough patch can be useful without becoming a finished piece.

The later chapters get more technical:

• “Asynchronous or Polyrhythmic Loops” (p. 124) applies directly to independent clocks and sequencers.
• “Sound-Color Melody” (p. 195) treats changes in timbre as musical movement.
• “The Rhythm of Automation” (p. 238) translates easily to envelopes, LFOs, and other control voltages.

“Randomness and Responsibility” (p. 250) matters for generative patching. Randomness creates options; it doesn’t decide which ones are good. That part remains the musician’s job.

Finally, “Arranging as a Subtractive Process” (p. 259) and “Rendering as Commitment” (p. 283) offer a practical way to finish: record a long take, choose the strongest passages, and stop trying to preserve every possibility.

For modular work, the book’s most useful lesson is straightforward: patch freely, record early, and edit later.

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What it means for modular

The book’s central idea is that creative blocks are usually practical problems, not evidence that you lack talent. Each one can be answered with a procedure. For modular synthesis, that leads to a few strong conclusions:

• Constraints create identity. Modular offers almost unlimited choices, which can weaken decisions. Limit the modules, cables, voices, clock divisions, or session length.
• Separate exploration from composition. A patching session doesn’t need to produce a track. Explore first, capture interesting results, then decide what deserves development.
• Record before the patch feels finished. Modular patches are temporary and often sound best during transitions or accidents. The recorder is effectively the system’s memory.
• Generate broadly before refining. Make several variations, sequences, routings, or takes before polishing one. Don’t spend an hour perfecting the first loop.
• Treat timbre as musical material. Melody doesn’t have to mean pitch. Changes in filtering, harmonics, envelope shape, density, and spatial position can carry a piece.
• Modulation needs phrasing. An LFO or random voltage isn’t automatically musical. Think about when change happens, how quickly it develops, and how different modulation cycles interact.
• Randomness proposes; you decide. Probability and generative systems create possibilities, but selection remains the composer’s responsibility. Curate the output rather than accepting everything the system produces.
• Repetition needs meaningful change. Variation can come from phase relationships, probability, timbre, register, density, or the gradual introduction and removal of layers — not necessarily new notes.
• Form can emerge through subtraction. Record a substantial performance, then remove weaker passages. With modular, arrangement is often easier after recording than while patching.
• Commitment is part of composition. Printing a take closes off possibilities, but that is precisely how a patch becomes a piece of music. Endless tweakability is not the same as improvement.
• Finishing matters more than preserving the patch. Patch notes and photographs are useful, but recreating every setting perfectly is rarely the point. Keep the recording and carry the lesson into the next patch.

Discovered her through Patch & Tweak.

“I just left myself play with what I want and trust my taste.”

Three pieces, three completely different approaches — but the same restraint running through all of them.

• What Is To Be Done? — dark and melodic, almost purely harmonic (H/P 4.67×), with enough rubato to feel hand-played rather than sequenced
• Abstract — percussion and melody weighted equally (H/P 1.01×), much sparser, rhythm tells the story through a deliberate arc: silence, percussion building to a peak, then receding
• Paris Texas — percussion stripped out almost completely (H/P 9.23×), bright and tonally stable in Eb major, the clearest key of the three, the slowest tempo, the most cinematic

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What Is To Be Done?

Timbre & Texture

• Spectral centroid: 1,538 Hz — warm, mid-focused sound; not bright or harsh
• Spectral rolloff (85%): 3,088 Hz — the vast majority of energy sits below 3kHz, confirming a dark, intimate character
• Zero-crossing rate: 0.026 — low, consistent with tonal/melodic content rather than noise or distortion
• H/P ratio: 4.67× — strongly harmonic-dominant; melodic/harmonic layers far outweigh percussive transients (think piano, strings, or sustained synths over drums)

Dynamics

• Mean RMS: 0.193 — moderately loud on average
• Dynamic range: 0.000 → 0.572 — significant variation, with moments of near silence and peaks; likely builds in intensity
• Onset std/mean ratio: 1.80 — high variability in attack strength, suggesting expressiveness or rubato phrasing rather than a rigid grid

Structure (8 detected sections)

Section	Time	Duration
Intro	0:00	19s
A	0:19	~1:00
Transition	1:18	22s
B	1:41	40s
Bridge	2:21	19s
C	2:40	48s
D / climax?	3:28	34s
Outro	4:02	26s

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Summary

An introspective, harmonically rich piece in F minor — slow-burning at ~129 BPM but with enough rubato to feel unquantized. The harmonic-to-percussive ratio and low spectral rolloff strongly suggest acoustic or semi-acoustic instrumentation with piano prominent. The 8-segment structure with a long first section and shorter later sections follows a classic through-composed arc. The title references Chernyshevsky/Lenin’s political text, hinting at intentional conceptual weight in the music too.

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Abstract

Timbre & Texture

• Spectral centroid: 1,692 Hz — slightly brighter than What Is To Be Done? (1,538 Hz)
• Spectral rolloff: 2,767 Hz — energy even more concentrated in the lows despite the brighter centroid
• Zero-crossing rate: 0.045 — nearly double WITBD’s 0.026; more transient/noisy content present
• H/P ratio: 1.01× — the most striking difference: almost perfectly balanced between harmonic and percussive layers, vs WITBD’s 4.67×. Far more rhythmic and textural

Dynamics

• Mean RMS: 0.051 — much sparser and quieter than WITBD (0.193); lots of breathing room
• Dynamic range: 0.000 → 0.637 — a very wide range, suggesting sharp contrasts between silence and peaks
• Onset std/mean ratio: 1.71 — similarly expressive attack variation

Structure (8 detected sections)

Section	Time	Duration
Intro	0:00	33s
A	0:33	13s
B	0:46	28s
C	1:14	56s
D	2:10	20s
E	2:30	34s
Outro	3:04	16s

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Summary

The H/P ratio flip (1.01× vs 4.67×) is the biggest tell between the two pieces — Abstract leans into texture and rhythm as much as melody, where What Is To Be Done? is almost purely melodic. The much lower mean RMS makes Abstract feel more spacious and sparse. D minor at 126 BPM. Same artist, clearly different intent.

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Paris Texas

Timbre & Texture

• Spectral centroid: 2,141 Hz — the brightest of the three; noticeably more air and presence
• Spectral rolloff: 4,220 Hz — significantly more high-frequency energy than WITBD (3,088 Hz) or Abstract (2,767 Hz)
• Zero-crossing rate: 0.054 — highest of the three; could suggest bowed strings, textured pads, or layered timbres
• H/P ratio: 9.23× — the most harmonically pure of all three; almost no percussive content at all

Dynamics

• Mean RMS: 0.093 — sits between WITBD (0.193) and Abstract (0.051); moderate density
• Dynamic range: 0.000 → 0.328 — tighter peaks than the other two; more controlled, less explosive
• Onset std/mean ratio: 0.90 — the most rhythmically even of the three; attacks are regular rather than rubato

Structure (8 detected sections)

Section	Time	Duration
Intro	0:00	13s
A	0:13	42s
B	0:56	35s
C	1:31	30s
D	2:00	58s
E	2:59	28s
Outro	3:27	9s

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Summary

Paris Texas is the most tonally centered of the three — Eb major with a correlation of 0.747 (vs 0.455 and 0.334 for the others), meaning the key is unusually clear and stable throughout. At 112 BPM it’s the slowest, and the H/P ratio of 9.23× means percussion is almost entirely absent. The brighter spectral profile and higher ZCR suggest strings or textured harmonic layers rather than piano alone. Named after the Wim Wenders film — wide, open, cinematic.

Onkyō (音響) is a Japanese experimental music movement that emerged in Tokyo in the late 1990s. It centers on extreme restraint — near-silence, micro-sounds, extended pauses, and the acoustic properties of the room itself as compositional material. Less about notes or rhythm, more about the texture of sound and the weight of silence between events. Heavily influenced by reductionism and electro-acoustic music, it blurs the line between performance and listening.

Artists

• Toshimaru Nakamura
• Sachiko M
• Otomo Yoshihide
• Tetuzi Akiyama
• Taku Sugimoto
• Ami Yoshida

“I’m not interested in playing music that has no risk.” — Toshimaru Nakamura